<Begin Segment 2>

TI: Now that you, you're in Japan, you're still a young boy, roughly six or so. Can you remember anything about Japan during this period?

SK: The fact that I had to completely forget whatever English I knew and concentrate on learning Japanese, because I am, I'm going to Japanese school. In fact, I have -- I don't know if you can see this or not. But aren't there six vaccination marks?

TI: Oh, right.

SK: You see it?

TI: Right there, right there.

SK: Six, aren't there? I got at, in this Japanese school. Vaccination marks, six of them. I did so well in learning Japanese because I concentrated in learning Japanese and, and play with Japanese kids every day, of course, that I did very well in school. And I think from about the fourth, third or fourth grade I became what is known as kyuucho, K-y-u-c-h-o, or class president. Which meant that every morning, I would pick up all the kids along the road from my home to the school and march them to school. After school, I would march them back. I recall waiting at my house for the kids who lived beyond me to arrive at my house so that we could form a line and start on our way to school as, as a kyuucho.

TI: Did the, the kids, the other Japanese children, treat you any differently because you came from the United States?

SK: No, no, they didn't. I don't recall any incident like that. Although I, I knew from the very beginning that I was not like them because I had been born and raised in the United States and that I came from the United States. I, I always knew that. And my aunt, with whom I lived, was a, what do you call it? Teacher of sewing or seamstress. And she seemed to know a lot about life. And she periodically would remind me that, "Your mother is in the States and she is doing this or that," or whatever.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.